Terry Hodgetts

Said the following about Simon Clare:

“I work for The Canal & River Trust, the charity that looks after 2000 miles of canal across England & Wales.

After a chance meeting with Simon Clare, we talked about the challenges we face in keeping a 250-year-old infrastructure safe and fit for purpose, and how Simon’s team could support the Trusts work in maintaining these wonderful green and blue corridors for everyone to enjoy.

With limited resources to deliver our work, the Trust is increasingly looking for support from volunteers and corporate organisations to help deliver these critical works. As such, Simon asked me if we could use 6 people for 4 days a week to help on the canals and obviously, I jumped at the chance.

Within the West Midlands Region we have an emergency response team, made up of 6 members, that deal with any arising emergency work which is where this extra resource was ideally suited.

Upon the start of this initiative the emergency response team manager has been able to double his workforce and create two teams of 6 people to not only deliver all the emergency work that arises, but also to deliver much needed planned work that wouldn’t otherwise get delivered because we wouldn’t have the resource to do it.

By way of example, the first project we completed with the Alliance colleagues was a stretch of rural towpath that kept being deferred due to higher arising priorities. Due to the donation of material budget and the labour from the Alliance we were able to complete this project, to the delight of our local customers as well as still delivering our emergency response work.

This support not only helps us to maintain our canals but also gives us a giving in kind (GIK) value of £150 per day/person based on a skilled labour charge rate. The alliance has now been supporting our charity for over a year and the GIK value to us would now be in excess of £160,000.

This support has meant that the Trust has been able to deliver critical works and we cannot thank the Alliance enough and would like the people involved with organising this support to be recognised for their efforts in making this work.

This type of support for our charity is yet to be equalled, but what it has demonstrated is how this type of collaboration and corporate support can benefit both organisations and help keep our canals alive for another 250 years!

I would like to nominate Simon and the wider team that makes this support happen every week.“